Laico El Farouk Hotel Bamako

... must work). They would go crazy when we gave them the 'la crayon' ou 'la bic'. Many cannot afford tablets to write or pencils/pens. This was heartbreaking and we wanted to leave/give so much more ev**y time.

The villag**s bathe, wash dishes, swim, etc, basically using the ***** Riv** as their source for EVERYTHING. They live in mud huts and get up at 5:30am each morning to begin the day of work which could include fishing, farming and/or harvesting. Each day is about ...

... amusing - A long drawn out greeting is part of the social norm where you are asked about the well being of yourself, your wife, your family, your village, your goats.....before any other business is talked about! The entire exchange is done at a furious pace in Bambara or the local language, but it gives you an indication of how important relationships are to Malians. Interactions are also easily misunderstood by foreigners and often it seems that people are yelling ...

13th - Another puncture before the border town of Nara, Mali, out of spares now. We headed down the long road to Bamako for 4 night's stay and a chance to recover from our adventures on the road to Oualata. Took nearly twice as long to get there as we had 2 punctures!!!! on the RHS.....just our luck. Staying at Hotel Jolieba on the south side of the river.



Dist cov = 447 km



14th - Lazy day around the swimming pool, every type of ...

Well, we are on our way home. This trip went much fast** than I would have ev** imagined. It seems like we just blinked and we are back on the plane. I am v**y glad to be going home to my family but wish I could do more to help the people of Mali. When this journey is done, it will be 39 straight hours of travelling to reach home. It started out aft** we left Koutiala this morning aft** breakfast. We then stopped in Segou at the market to buy ...

... meat rissoles cov**ed in butt**y flake pastry, followed by a vanilla slice and profit**oles. Truly the most incredible things I had ev** tasted! So much so I had to go back for seconds. Aft** gorging ourselves and changing more money we headed off to the sup**markets up the road to restock p**sonal supplies of crisps, chocolate and booze finding once again GBP2 1lt cartons of wine and indulging in bottles of spirits for the upcoming Christmas festivities ...

My goodness what a day, crossing borders, drinking, driving... thankfully not in that order! Up again at sparrows - slightly hungover so no running today... tomorrow. Whilst searching for firewood I stumbled across a lizard. Having lost my childhood carefree grab anything attitude I was hesitant to pick it up so called for backup. Rach stepped up to the plate and soon Fred, as it was later called, found a nice home on her shoulder until ...

Salut tout le monde. Ce petit mot c'est juste pour vous rassurer, rien de très grave ne m'est arrivé et la boule sur le plan est désactualisée grave car j'ai quitté Bamako le 10, je suis entrée au Sénégal le 12 et je m'apprete à le quitter inch allah dans quelques heures. Je suis à Zinguinchor, capitale de la Casamance à 30 km de la frontière avec la Guiné Bissau. Je n'ai plus eu l'occasion d'actualiser le blog et le tas de choses ...

... tort que tous les jours il s'y rendait pour travailler. Ce n'était qu'un parmi ses plusieurs clients et du coup j'ai attendu de 10h jusqu'à 14h30, après quoi quelqu'un m'a donné son numéro et je l'ai envoyé un sms. Je n'ai même pas senti le temps passer ce qui peut vous donner une idée de mon désespoir. Este é o proprio dreda. Encontrei-me com ele meio por acaso, estava a procura de alguém que me pudesse aceder ao disco duro do pc que usei para escrever os primeiros posts ...

Fr : Tout le monde achète ce genre de K7 avec de la musique marocaine/arabe ou bien le coran dedans. Pas trop mon type de zik, en plus la qualité des enregistrements laisse a désirer, on dirait que tout les chanteurs enregistrent dans leur salle de bain. Pt : Aqui estão as K7 que vos falei quando descrevi a parafernalia que compunha o camião que me deixou em Kanitra.

... It took us three hours to reach our first major stop. When we checked our timetable, we should have been there an hour-and-a-half earlier! By the time we'd been on the train for 7 hours, we were already 7 hours late - an hour lost for every hour travelled!  Have Virgin's west coast trains in England been taking lessons from MaliRail? Not relishing the prospect of a 60-hour journey...to cover the not so impressive distance of 1,500km! We regularly stopped in ...